


best of summers gone

by rosycheeked



Series: Lights On Park Ave 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Dialogue Light, Fluff, Getting Together, Lights On Park Ave, M/M, New Beginnings, POV Tony Stark, Summer, sunrise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 17:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosycheeked/pseuds/rosycheeked
Summary: Tony's favorite month has always been August.





	best of summers gone

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Sorry about disappearing for like five years—I've got three WIPs I'm writing at the same time and getting nowhere on.
> 
> But I wrote this little ficlet for the first round of LOPA 2019! I'm excited for the months to come!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> E

_“Three years ago, the hot, sticky August rain fell big and wet as I sat listlessly on my porch at home, crying over the way summer would not come again - never the same. […] August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”_

_-Sylvia Plath_

...

His favorite month has always been August.

It’s to do with summer, really, Tony’s always loved summer. He loves the heat on the back of his neck and the breeze on his face and the smell of life, breathing, _living_, even in the cold-hearted grey of the city.

The beginning of summer is always too hot too fast, flowers bloomed brightly during spring beginning to wilt from the dryness of it all.

The middle is always rainy, drizzling and sticky and humid. The moments blur so easily. The time slips by the quickest then, June-July-August—

_August._ Bright sunshine, dew on the grass, birds in the trees. When he looks out the window it’s bright, bright, bright, and he can feel its warmth within him. It still rains, of course, but only once in a while. When it does, it’s heavy, like tears, he’s always thought.

Like the sky itself is crying for the way summer will never quite come the same way again.

August has always been his favorite month. It’s an ending. Summer’s gone, and September’s yet to come, but still not born; the last strands of heat and rain and green leaves on the trees are still wrapped around his deft fingers and his cooling heart.

...

Steve won’t look at him anymore. Tony wishes he’d never said anything to him about feelings or friendship on the high of a fresh August summer day.

It’s been weeks, and Steve has only spoken to him on the battlefield when necessary, exchanged pleasantries for appearances’ sake, and cut glances out of the corner of his eye when he thinks Tony’s not looking.

He doesn’t understand that Tony’s always looking, since that lovely August morning.

...

Steve painted him a picture of August, once, or what he imagined the idea of August to be. The first time Tony had seen it, he’d wanted to cry. And kiss Steve; but he always wanted to kiss Steve. It was a side effect of being in love with him.

It was a painting of a woman on her porch in the rain, heavy rain you can only find in August. The rain Tony had always thought of as tears. The picture is blurred, but thoughtfully, and is dark, as if bittersweet or melancholy.

Tony still has that painting. He hangs it in his bedroom, where Steve never goes. He doesn’t think he could bear Steve’s look if he found out he’s kept the painting like some sentimental fool.

He’s so stupid. What did he think would come of telling Steve how he felt? They were better off as friends, really. At least that way Steve would smile at his snark and hear out his rants and paint him beautiful pictures of August skies.

They’d watched the sunrise, that morning, through the windows on the communal floor. It wasn’t raining. It was one of the most breathtaking things Tony had ever seen, and that wasn’t counting the look on Steve’s face right then. 

There was a reason he had always loved summer. There was a charm about it, a sort of magic that only a month like August could create. A feeling that anything could happen. A hope, unshakable, that _maybe_—

It is not to be. Steve’s made sure to get that point across.

...

Tony tries to approach him, the next day.

“Steve,” he begins, “I’m sorry.”

And Steve looks so—

Tony can’t place the look on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Tony repeats.

Steve turns away. Tony can take a hint. He leaves.

...

It’s August thirty-first, now. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and it’ll be fall again. When August ends, it all happens so fast, the chills and the leaves changing and falling and the frost appearing from nowhere.

Tony both loves it and hates it. He wants to treasure the summer but the days feel like molasses and they stick to his skin and his hands feel clammy. The fall is coming.

_Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—_

...

He can’t sleep that night, so he stays up by the windows in the communal area, remembering.

If this summer is the last of its kind, the last he’ll have with memories of Steve’s smile and his sharp eyes and artist’s hands, then Tony will keep this summer in his heart for the rest of his life.

If this is it, then he knows this is the best of summers gone, of those yet to come. He will not forget.

Tony feels someone sit down beside him. He turns—it’s Steve, who else would it be?

Steve says nothing, just looks out the window with that same look in his eyes, the one Tony can never read, and so Tony doesn’t say anything either.

The seconds tick by like hours. Tony counts each one on a breath and a heartbeat, his and Steve’s, one after another. 

They watch through the night as cars fly by, as people shout in the streets, as a bird soars past their window, and then the sun’s peeking out over the horizon and it’s September.

Tony looks at Steve, again. The faint light from the dawn reflects in his eyes.

Tony can’t help it, he has to say something to fill the suddenly unbearable silence, so he turns fully and prepares himself to make some horrible sort of small talk. “Do you think—“

Steve kisses him.

Holy _shit_, Steve is kissing him.

This is the moment, he muses, between one month and another, between one day and the next, between a summer dying and an autumn reborn.

He kisses Steve back.

...

Tony has always loved August the best.

He’s always loved endings, because every ending means a beginning or two or three—albeit in different places, perhaps. Different times.

He loves beginnings and endings and especially the Augusts that happen in between.

With Steve beside him, though, smiling brighter than the rising sun outside their window, he decides he rather likes September, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, all! I live for feedback!
> 
> E


End file.
